by Grace Pappadellis ’29 on October 1, 2026
Opinion
This week I’d like to tell a story reminiscent of summer. As my favorite time of year comes to a close, I am allowing wistful, nostalgic feelings to exude out of me.
However, this slice of my life is not one cut from recent years, never mind this past summer that has waned by way of the onset of fall. We can all feel it in the atmosphere—clean, brisk air, dim, golden light filtering through the trees and splotching on summer-stained grass, just enough warmth in the wind to feel at ease; but the birth of each morning is quiet and chilled, portending winter more and more at every sunrise. Everyone’s cheeks are flushed as they walk with their arms crossed and their backs slightly hunched. Everyone starts craving something colder, something that they can find more comfort in with every new layer they add, but little do they know, despite the liminal beauty of fall, the impending cold will only drain them of their color and deepen the bags beneath their eyes. That said, with the keen channeling of sweltering summer days lived sweetly and to their very end, the colors can ruminate overhead and trickle down, down, down, scrawling delicate hues on our skin and filling in the blankness…
I remember the blistering sun of that day, the impenetrable heat. I could barely see when I got out of my pepe’s little red sedan. I stood on the driveway, squinting so hard that I couldn’t make out the abundant rows of blueberry bushes, proud as peacocks on the vast, lurid green lawn. I had my empty half-gallon milk jug ready, the top sliced off, leaving a wide opening, with an orange cord to loop through the handle and tie around my waist. My grandma wore long pants and a long-sleeve cotton shirt in spite of the heat. She always tended towards the cold side of body temperatures. My pepe wore a garishly bright turquoise T-shirt that could have singed my corneas.
After paying at the dilapidated yet quaint brown shed, we strolled out into the patch, our shoes squishing into the mucky parts of the ground, indicative of last night’s summer rain. I felt the dire heat all around me, cocooning me in a tight, oppressive swaddle. I didn’t pay much attention to the heaviness of my eyelids and the slight ache in my head. I was thrilled to see the deep blue, bulbous blueberries adorning the branches of each bush, packed together and plentiful. My grandma hummed an old Dean Martin song as she made her way through the paths, collecting more berries than my pepe and I combined. She was methodical and thorough; she had her own patient diligence, as if she had a quiet responsibility for all the berries, plucking them one by one and softly plopping them into her jug with care.
My pepe talked about the sun and the heat as others passed us, creating amicable small talk with friendly strangers. He let out his hearty laugh and repeated phrases like, “Hot one today, isn’t it?” and “We haven’t reached these temperatures in years! Years I tell you!” He was a small man, stout, and smiley. He had icy blue charming eyes that smiled with him. He was in the Navy as a young man, which inspired the constant stream of stories he was always ready to share.
I bent down low to reach an extra supple cluster of berries when his voice started to sound very distant, very muffled, though he was standing right next to me. I saw his chunky, beige New Balances and thick white socks. Peering beneath the root of the bush, I saw my grandma’s small, pink Skechers set politely in front of another bush, her thin ankles slightly exposed between the top of her socks and the hem of her pants. Suddenly, I couldn’t make out the berries in front of me. They were warped, surrounded by a dazzling kaleidoscope, and a splotchy blackness appeared over them. I couldn’t see my grandma anymore, either. I couldn’t tell if she had pranced away, or if I was going blind. My pepe’s voice was like something hanging from the trees behind the berry farm, resonant, ominous, indiscernible. I couldn’t move. The pain in my head increased to a throb, as if an iron mallet was slamming against my skull. Still in a hunched position, my fingertips pressed against the firm berries, I attempted to yank at the branch, but I fell to my knees. Then, everything was loose, the pain had dissipated, but the sky was blank and the heat felt cool. I swayed backwards, as if being lulled to sleep in an old, rickety rocking chair. Sunlight tried to push through my eyelids, but I was impervious to its brightness. I was out.
As the blackness splattered across my vision faded to a light shade of red, I was still unable to see clearly, save for the very tops of the pines that tickled the cloudless sky. Fortunately, I felt the grass scratching my bare legs, a steady grip beneath my shoulders, and a familiar prickliness in my fingers and toes. I was being dragged, quickly, impressively, by someone channeling the utmost strength. I was cooler now, but it was a comprehended coolness, a coolness compared to the deathly heat, not a sick, delirious coolness. The sky was pale yellow, but it wasn’t the sky. It was a tent. And my back was straight, I was upright, propped, breathing slowly.
“Gracie, Gracie,” a close and raspy voice said. I was waking up from a dream, not necessarily a nightmare, but a dream that could only be induced by toxic sunshine and a poisonous batch of blueberries. I was able to come out of my somnolent state to see my grandparents’ loving, pumpkin-pie faces right in front of me. Bathing in the shade beneath the tent, I admired them as deeply as I could for mere seconds before becoming conscious again.